Will a wheel repair affect my vehicle car truck lease?

If you own your vehicle, you can make alterations and tweaks to it to your heart’s content. But a leased vehicle is different - often even the smallest alteration can result in massive fees at the dealership upon turn-in.

But what if you drive over a pothole and bend your wheel or curb the alloys and they’re all scratched up? Can you have them repaired back to their original state without it counting as an alteration or modification?

Painting is an easy way to cover scratches and protect from future damage, but with a leased vehicle, this will be seen as a modification by a dealership, even if you have the wheel painted the SAME COLOR AND FINISH as the original wheel. Go figure.

However, repairs that don’t use paint or clear-coat or basically add anything to the wheel are a different matter. As long as you’re not changing the fundamental appearance or composition of the wheel beyond what it was when you originally leased it (ie, by adding paint), you shouldn’t even need to declare the work done, let alone have to pay the dealership for ‘alterations’. After all, you’re not having it altered; if you had a rock chip in your windscreen or a dent in your car door, it wouldn’t be viewed as an alteration if you simply had it repaired before turn-in. 

Don’t go to the other extreme and reason that you’ll be safer if you just leave your scratched-up or bent wheels as they are since the dealer might not even notice and either way they won’t charge you for any modifications. They WILL notice - they’re trained in the dark arts of fine-toothcombing. And they may not charge you for modifications, but they will absolutely charge you to repair the damage. And they will make you pay through the nose for the privilege of having them do the work to restore the car to its original lease state. It is NEVER cheaper to pay the dealership’s fees to repair wheel damage.

The professionals at Salt City Wheels in Salt Lake City, Utah have been restoring, repairing and refinishing wheels since time immemorial. We have restored more curbed wheels on leased vehicles than we can begin to count, and subsequently saved our clients from the dire dollar demands of dealerships out to diddle you. 

If your vehicle is close to the end of its lease and your wheels are in desperate need of attention, don’t dillydally - call the experts at Salt City Wheels today at 801 425 3044. Our mobile wheel experts will be with you faster than you can cry ‘Save me!’ to rescue you from the wrath of the dealership.